Between 1892 and 1893, Monet settled down to paint a series of paintings depicting the facade of Rouen’s  Cathedral Notre-Dame . His objective was to paint them from different angles and at different times of the day and in different seasons.
 
His series of 30 or so paintings have immortalised Rouen’s Cathedral.
 
The first paintings were finished in February 1892 and were painted from the Cour d’Albane. These pictures are the only ones of the 30 that were painted in the open air.
 
Monet painted from 2 other vantage points: the first was on the first floor of the then Bureau des Finances, which today is home to the Rouen Seine valley Tourist office. From here Monet would produce 28 views of the western doorway s seen in different weather conditions at various times in the day.
 
These pictures were all painted during the period 1892 and 1893 in two sessions and all were post dated 1894. Claude Monet used to have about 14 pictures on the go at any one time and would go from one canvass to the next according to the time of day or the variations in the light and weather conditions.
 
Monet spent two years looking at the facade of the cathedral but only went into it 12 days after he had finished the final painting !
 
20 of the series were put on show together in 1895 in the by then famous gallery belonging to Durand-Ruel . The paintings were especially admired by the painters such as Degas, Cézanne, Pissarro and Renoir. Claude Monet and his cathedra series were to take a special place in the development of the movement as a whole and the popularity of the school in France and the rest of the world.